


Fall apart without me

by Whatisthiswhatamidoing



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Ben Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Ben Hargreeves-centric, Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Neglect, Delusions, Gen, Gore, Mental Breakdown, Vomiting, be careful, ben is not having a good time, for the love of god someone get him a hug, like a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:01:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29460960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whatisthiswhatamidoing/pseuds/Whatisthiswhatamidoing
Summary: Ben stares at the beautiful ruby red seeping across the porcelain floor. The stench of iron invades his nose, dissolving his mind and wiping it clean. It would take a lot of bleach to clean the floors, Ben distantly thinks. Maybe if he asked nicely the cleaners would bleach him away too.orA mission goes wrong. Ben copes.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Allison Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Diego Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Ben Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves, Reginald Hargreeves & Number Six | Ben Hargreeves
Comments: 11
Kudos: 14





	Fall apart without me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MalecAcid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalecAcid/gifts).



> i wrote this fic in a matter of hours because em wanted angst 😔 hope this delivers, ily

Ben stares at the beautiful ruby red seeping across the porcelain floor. The stench of iron invades his nose, dissolving his mind and wiping it clean. It would take a lot of bleach to clean the floors, Ben distantly thinks. Maybe if he asked nicely the cleaners would bleach him away too.

He didn’t know how long it’s been. Time is stretching, bending to the whims of his mind and mere hours pass away like seconds. He can’t be sure how much time has actually passed, but his legs are numb, and the wine red that seeped into the cracks is cold. But that didn’t make sense, it isn’t supposed to be cold, it’s supposed to be warm, warm like the hugs of his sisters, the smiles from his brothers, and loud cackles from Klaus. It isn’t supposed to be like this, cool scarlet dripping off his fingers.

He must be imagining things, he decides. He usually didn’t imagine things like that, but right now anything can happen. The whole world can turn upside down and all Ben would do is try and hang on. He knows that it can’t have been long, because Dad contacts them on Luther’s walkie talkie if they take too long, and Ben hasn’t heard a peep.

The silence is getting to him, actually. All that he can hear is his own breathing and–

_Screams, torn from voices Ben’s only heard speaking quietly, normally, laughing and teasing him with a smile on their faces._

_His own shaky breathing, uneven and far too fast, but maybe that’s how people normally breathe? It hasn’t been so long since he’s seen a breathing person, but it’s so easy to forget, to resist the urge to tear out his own heart to stop it from being so loud._

_Voices echo somewhere in the deep crevices of his mind. They speak in a language he’s never heard before, whispering things that struck fear deep in the primal part of his brain. Every limb screams at him to run, move, but what’s the point? Creatures like him don’t deserve to live._

He lay his palms flat against the puddle of ruby red, watching how his trembling fingers made ripples in the thick liquid, small disturbances that grew and grew until they reached the bodies of–

When he trembles like this, so hard that his teeth chatter, it’s usually in his best interests to stay seated until he stops, but he’s been like this for hours (minutes?) and he hasn’t shown any sign of stopping soon. When he gets like this, one of the others would comfort him, distracting him with silly stories and warm blankets and tight hugs. The voices, strange and forgien worm into his ears, making it inordinately hard to breathe. He squeezes his eyes shut, and when he opens them, he’s looking at a hand. He doesn’t know who it is, but he knows enough to reach out and grasp the fingers.

Limp, cold. Some part of him was supposed to be averse to it, to the idea of taking comfort from a dead body, but that part of him had been killed long ago. They reminded him almost of mom’s hands. Cold. Lifeless.

This is another thing he’s imagining, he decides. His sibling’s fingers aren’t dead, they’re just asleep, in fact, he can feel them waking up, yes, there’s the twitch of the fingers right now. Klaus is just playing a prank on him, the asshole.

“You really had me worried there, you know." He grins, his heart beating too fast for him to be angry. He’s been smiling for a while, actually. His cheeks hurt. “Joke’s over, though, we need to get back to the car.”

No response. What an asshole. Sighing indulgently, he walks over and wraps his arms around Klaus’ chest. He has to let him go and vomit in a corner when his hand accidentally slips into the cool sliminess of Klaus’ guts, but he’s fine, it’s all fine. Klaus leans against him heavily, being no help at all, he tries to help him stand up until he realises that Klaus’ right leg is on the other side of the room.

“Oops, sorry, my bad." He smiles, wondering why his voice is so watery. He drags Klaus to the door, berating him for being such a lump. Klaus remains silent, his lips too busy leaking blood to talk. Ben doesn’t mind, it’s nice to be the talkative one for once.

The others are equally unhelpful, especially Luther, who didn’t even have any arms that Ben can drag him to the door with, and he’s so _heavy._ Klaus is the lightest, but Allison is a close second, her bloodshot eyes perfectly matching her red painted nails.

His hands hasn’t stopped shaking in the slightest, but he manages to get the walkie talkie from Luther regardless. After a few misses, he eventually presses the right button to get it to work.

“Well? Are you done?” Dad’s tinny, impatient voice rings out in the silent room, reverberating throughout the room and making his ears bleed.

For a moment, he’s confused about what Dad is asking, until he remembers, they were on a mission, weren’t they?

“Yes." He answers, because they must be. Why else would the others be playing pranks like this?

“Which one of you is it?”

“Six, Sir.” Ben answers, his body somewhere far beyond him. What he’s really doing is stroking Diego’s hair. He really has quite nice hair, it’s a shame that Dad won’t let him grow it out. Maybe when they’re older and they moved out, he can.

“Let me talk to One.”

“Sure,” he places the walkie talkie in one’s hand and sets on about sitting each of the others up against the wall. It can’t be comfortable lying on the hard ground like that, especially not with the sticky blood everywhere.

He has to take another break to vomit when something squirms in his gut, as well about ten minutes trying to claw it out of him. It stubbornly resists, and soon enough he has to stop, or it’ll hurt too bad to help his siblings.

There’s silence from the walkie talkie when Ben comes back, so he turns it off, putting it back in Luther’s pocket where it belongs. “Thanks for letting me borrow it,” he adds, remembering how much Luther loves walkie talkie duty, “I'll let you borrow some of my books tomorrow.” By now he’s used to the way his voice hitches and cracks, and catches on sobs. It had probably been like this his whole life, the smooth, calm voice of his nothing more than his imagination.

He waits patiently for Dad to come and pick them up. In the meantime, he fixes the others’ clothes, wipes the blood from their faces, and debates bringing their limbs over as well. It would be difficult to tell who’s belonged to who’s, though.

He blinks, and an hour or a second passes by and the doors are open, letting in horrific, blinding light.

It’s too much, and he’s overwhelmed with searing hot fear that solders him into place. He blinks up, and eventually makes out a silhouette in the shape of his father.

“Hi, Dad." He croaks out, knowing that he’ll get punished for not standing to attention, but the floors are really slippery and his balance has suddenly gone out of the window. Standing up is unthinkable.

Dad doesn’t answer, taking in the scene before him with wide eyes. Ben has never seen him look _afraid_ before, and it strikes terror deep in his very bones. Something must be wrong, to make Dad look like that.

There’s a long moment of silence, where Dad stares and Ben tries not to fall over, until he can’t take the silence anymore. He can hear his heartbeat, loud, _wrong_ thundering in his ears and all he wants is for it to _stop._

“Dad?”

Dad blinks, readjusting his monocle and looking down at him like he was nothing more than mud on his shoe, so back to normal. “What a waste." He mutters, and Ben blinks, uncomprehending. Dad turns back behind him into the blinding light, “get rid of the bodies.”

Ben doesn’t even realise that he wasn’t being spoken to until dark shapes, _strangers_ , walked in, staggering slightly, but advancing when Dad tapped his cane.

Ben sat as they came forwards, not even realising what was happening until one of them tried to pick up Luther.

“Don’t fucking _touch_ him!” He screams, louder than he ever has before, and punches the man in the face, causing him to stumble away. This must be part of the mission, this must be a test, and he has to help his siblings pass it because they’re just _lying_ there and not doing _anything._

He prepares himself for an attack but none comes, and he rushes over to man trying to pick up _Klaus._ “Don’t touch them! Leave us alone! What are you doing, I told you, don’t fucking _touch them!”_ He screams, and his throat, already weak and exhausted, gives out but he keeps screaming anyway. He’s outnumbered, they won’t stop attacking them, they keep trying to drag the others away, he doesn’t know what to _do._

Eventually he can’t even stand anymore, the men seem hesitant about approaching him, but as soon as he listed to the side and collapsed, they dismissed him as a threat. He sobs and cries, screaming after his siblings as they’re dragged away, one by one. His breaths come too fast as he hugs Klaus tight, dripping tears on his bloody face as he rocks him and chants under his breath. Black dots seep in the corner of his vision, and yet his grip tightens when he feels hands pull at Klaus.

“No! Get your fucking hands off him! I'll kill you, I'll kill you I'll kill you–” he blubbers the words until they don’t make sense anymore and a tight grip twists in his hair, pulling him upright and _away from Klaus oh god no please no Klaus–_

He struggles and twists and cries but the arms around him may as well be steel. Something pinches his neck and the taste of metal enters his mouth. He’s dropped to the floor, and he finds that he can’t even lift his limbs and Klaus is dragged away, away, away.

He lays there, wailing like an injured animal, until his own breaths come too fast for him to handle, and he slips away.

**Author's Note:**

> the ending's up for interpretation, so imagine it how you like 😌


End file.
